In a photolithography process as one of manufacturing processes for a microdevice such as a semiconductor device or a liquid crystal display device, an exposure apparatus which transfers a pattern formed on a mask to a substrate is used. This exposure apparatus has a mask stage that is movable while holding a mask and a substrate stage that is movable while holding a substrate, and transfers a pattern of a mask to a substrate via the projection optical system while successively moving the mask stage and the substrate stage. In microdevice manufacturing, for higher density of the device, it has been demanded to increase the fineness of the pattern to be formed on the substrate. To meet this demand, higher resolution of the exposure apparatus has been desired. As one of the means for realizing this higher resolution, a liquid immersion exposure apparatus has been proposed which fills an optical path space between a projection optical system and a substrate with a liquid and exposes the substrate via the projection optical system and the liquid as disclosed in Patent Document 1:
Patent document 1: International Publication Pamphlet No. 99/49504